Disasters drive DNA forensics to reunite families

Both the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, left lasting scars on national psyches. But forensic tools developed because of these disasters could soon be put to use for a happier purpose: to help to reunite Jewish families shattered by the Holocaust

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Disasters drive DNA forensics to reunite families

Both the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, left lasting scars on national psyches. But forensic tools developed because of these disasters could soon be put to use for a happier purpose: to help to reunite Jewish families shattered by the Holocaust, says Claire Ainsworth in an exclusive news report in this week’s Nature.

The DNA Shoah project was founded by Syd Mandelbaum, a son of survivors of the Holocaust, or Shoah as it is known in Hebrew, and Michael Hammer, a geneticist at the University of Arizona. They want to establish a DNA database of survivors, hoping it could help them identify some of the Holocaust-era remains that have recently started to surface in Poland, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe. Another goal is to reunite some of the roughly 10,000 Holocaust orphans, who were sent abroad after the war, with family members.

The project will use tools developed to identify victims of World Trade Center attack and the tsunami. These can cope with badly degraded DNA samples, such as those that will be found in Holocaust remains. They could also help with the tricky task of matching distant relatives, which is necessary as so many immediate members of families were killed in the Holocaust.

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Published: 07 Jun 2006

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